Page 82 of Hot Intent

He leaned back, staring at the screen. “CCRE is designed to provoke paranoid schizophrenic episodes.”

“In English, please?”

“Put in lay terms, it’s a mind-altering substance that makes a person fearful and distrustful of others. Makes them think someone’s out to hurt or kill them.”

“But I thought they were questioning you. Wouldn’t they want you uninhibited and trusting so you’d tell them everything?”

“If that were the case, they would only have shot me up with scopolamine or some other truth serum-style drug.”

“Why did they treat you like a criminal and not me?” she asked. “You’re the government employee with a right to be there, after all. I’m the one they should have been really suspicious of. Was it because I’m a girl and you’re a big, strong, dangerous man?”

She was still as perceptive as always. He frowned thoughtfully at her. She’d asked a hell of a good question. Why hadn’t they interrogated her? He’d leaped to the obvious conclusion before—that she was in on the scam.

But if that was the case, why would she point it out like this?

Was she making a feint within a feint to throw him off her trail? Was she actually that subtle? Was he a gullible fool to have taken her at face value all this time? Was she a great deal more than a civilian nurse who loved him and was willing to lay her heart on the line for him openly and honestly?

God, he didn’t know who to believe any more. The maelstrom whirled around him more violently than ever. His mother. Katie. The CIA. André Fortinay. His father. Cold Intent. Who else wanted a piece of his soul?

An urge to scream rose in his throat. Appalled, he bit it back.Focus, for crying out loud.Follow Katie’s line of reasoning and see where she’s trying to lead you.

There had been plenty of time for John Doe, his interrogator, to get instructions from Washington. John Doe couldn’t possibly have had the rank or authority to decide to dope a U.S. intelligence operative for grins and giggles. The decision to drug himhadto have come from Langley.

Why had the CIA been out to mess with him and not with Katie? Particularly since it seemed that someone within Langley pretty seriously wanted to see her dead.

His suspicions from before roared to the fore once more. Was this all an elaborate head game designed to throw him violently off balance and off guard? But to what end? What did they want from him?

He looked up sharply as the computer lifted off his lap. Katie tossed a leg across his hips and straddled his lap.

“What the hell are you doing?” he blurted.

“Getting your undivided attention.” She pulled at his belt buckle, and it gave way under her fingers.

Mother of God. She was really raising the stakes, now. What was her gambit? He braced to resist her sexual advances. He’d been trained in how to handle situations like this, but the hookers in his training hadn’t been Katie. She was the one and only woman who’d ever managed to get inside his head when she got inside his pants.

He swore at himself. This was his fault. He’d let her past his guard. He’d set himself up for this. Was this what his mother had done to his father? No wonder Roman had fallen prey to her.

Christ. He was lucky his old man even spoke to him, let alone raised him, after this mind fuck.

Katie wiggled suggestively, demanding his attention. He yanked his thoughts back to the woman stripping while she sat on his crotch.

“So,” he commented coldly. “You’re a sparrow after all. I have to compliment you on your extraordinary acting talent.”

She replied tartly, “I’m not a sparrow, and you, of all people, know it. You know how little sexual experience I had before I met you. No sparrow would be sent out in the field to use sex as a weapon with barely any knowledge of it.”

He examined her logic as calmly as he could with her hands on his zipper. Reluctantly, he had to admit she had a point. Unless, of course, she’d been acting every single time he’d ever slept with her. He thought back to the dozens of times they’d made passionate love since he’d met her.

Surely, he would’ve caught something off, some tiny hint that she wasn’t exactly as she seemed, wasn’t genuinely enjoying herself, didn’t have deep and real feelings for him?—

He asked desperately, “Why is the CIA trying to kill you, but not the slightest bit interested in questioning you? Do you know something they don’t want revealed?”

She sat back on his thighs, staring at him thoughtfully. “I do knowyoubetter than anyone else.”

“Why would that alarm the CIA?” he asked reflexively.

“Is somebody trying to hide your real motives for joining Doctors Unlimited?” she asked slowly. “Or is this internal CIA politics? I’ve heard Charlie gripe about the games people play at Langley. Is someone engaging in a slam campaign against you that you’re not aware of? Maybe someone’s spreading lies about you and doesn’t want me to tell the truth?”

“The CIA is not a high school lunch room.”

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